Mobile and tablet devices not supporting the Flash player plugin have contributed to the overall decline of development of interactive web animations during the past few years.

Up until very recently, Web designers and developers have had very limited options to create cross-device compatible interactivity, typically relying on AJAX based components. Today we are closing the gap as new emerging technology and web programs are opening doors for new types of ‘Flash free’ interactive ‘animations’.

Adobe has brought in two new software products to the market, Adobe Edge, and CreateJS Toolkit built for Adobe Flash Pro CS6, that both offer promising steps towards more quickly produced code based HTML5 interactivity. Google has also developed a program called Google Swiffy which will convert Flash animations to HTML5.

Adobe Edge, currently in beta/preview mode, uses CSS to draw objects, javascript to animate objects, and HTML div’s to place these objects on the page. This is an intriguing solution for making web pages more interactive but is visually somewhat limited due to CSS code not being able to render complex vector drawings such as hexagons.

Complex vector graphic animations can be created using Flash Pro CS6 which can then be exported as web friendly SVG’s (scalable vector graphics), and animated on HTML5 canvas using either the new built-in CreateJS Toolkit or by using the Google .swf to HTML5 conversion tool Swiffy.

Adobe’s CreateJS Toolkit allows a developer to export Flash animations to HTML5 format so where one can then program the further interactivity of the vector graphics with javascript. Google Swiffy on the other hand allows the developer to program the interactivity of scalable vector graphics in Flash, and then converts the rendered .swf file to HTML5.

With the new interactive tools available, there are now ways for web designers and web developers to increase cross-device compatible interactive creativity both economically and efficiently. A designer/developer can now put together an interactive experience where the exported code renders on all modern browsers and devices without the use of the Flash Player Plugin.

By far, the dominant advertising platform on the web is Google’s AdWords. Up until very recently, Google’s AdWords was fine with serving ads to mobile devices that linked to pages with Flash content. In a recent change in policy, Google’s AdWords seems to now block serving pay-per-click ads to mobile devices (iPad/iPhone/Android) if the advertised website being linked to in the ad has any Flash running on it. This includes websites running javascript coded “Flash-checkers”. Google’s AdWords now requires that at least on your site’s initial landing/home page where you may have used a Javascript based Flash checker, you’ll now need to instead add specialized web code for checking what type of device has arrived to your home page, and then auto-route a visitor to appropriate mobile friendly Flash free content.

The situation is definitely not completely clear yet because Google hasn’t made any official statements on the matter. Since Goolge’s own Android mobile platform supports Flash this new policy is interesting, and appears to cater the growing market of iPhone and iPad users.

Dallas Web design & development company Interaria follows the developments of AdWord policy closely. Interaria specializes in coding websites that are “Google-friendly”.

HTML5 doesn’t perhaps sound all that fancy but it is a new developing programming language that is the next major revision of the HTML standard. HTML5 incorporates new features such as a video playback and a drag-and-drop technology that have been previously dependent on third-party browser plug-ins such as Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. HTML5 video player especially will be useful for incorporating video to Apple iPhone and iPad that currently do not support Adobe Flash Player. Apple describes HTML5 as “open, reliable, highly secure, and efficient”. This Apple’s endorsement doesn’t sound so sweet for Adobe, the maker of the Flash Player at the moment.

Interaria is efficient in HTML5 code language, and follows the developments closely. Please contact Interaria at 214-909-3900 (Dallas) or 512-300-9286 (Austin) for discussing web technologies further and what they mean to your business.